Collective depression is one of many

collective mental state Collective mental state is generally a literary or legal term, mostly used in sociology and philosophy (in addition to its singular use in psychiatry and psychology), to refer to the condition of someone's being-state when around others. An asses ...

s, such as collective elation, collective paranoia,

collective trauma The term collective trauma calls attention to the "psychological reactions to a traumatic event that affect an entire society." Collective trauma does not only represent a historical fact or event, but is a collective memory of an awful event th ...

, or collective grief, which may affect a group, community or whole nation. It is characterised by a prevailing and seemingly permanent sense of inadequacy, despondency, lack of vitality, sadness and hopelessness, shared by a high proportion of the members of a collectivity. As shown by

Gustave Le Bon Charles-Marie Gustave Le Bon (; 7 May 1841 – 13 December 1931) was a leading French polymath whose areas of interest included anthropology, psychology, sociology, medicine, invention, and physics. He is best known for his 1895 work '' The Crowd ...

in 1895, it can be passed by contagion, in a way similar to a physical condition. Collective depression is often found in detained communities, such as ghettos, concentration camps or other places where all prospects of release are extremely improbable, and is recognisable by a high incidence of suicide. There is debate over the philosophical status of the concept: while

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, phil ...

Franz Borkenau Franz Borkenau (December 15, 1900 – May 22, 1957) was an Austrian writer. Borkenau was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of a civil servant. As a university student in Leipzig, his main interests were Marxism and psychoanalysis. Borkenau is kno ...

and many others accepted the existence of a collective mind or

collective unconscious Collective unconscious (german: kollektives Unbewusstes) refers to the unconscious mind and shared mental concepts. It is generally associated with idealism and was coined by Carl Jung. According to Jung, the human collective unconscious is popula ...

, much modern thinking treats collective depression as an aggregate of individuals depressions. However, there is growing interest in the concept of mass sociogenic illness where a physical or psychological condition is observed to spread within a group without a common organic cause. The remedy for collective depression is the restoration of hope, though this may be a task beyond the capabilities of any leader of a community. Collective depression can also be a state of considerable vulnerability, as destructive strategies may be clutched at through misplaced belief in the efficacy of radical measures.

References

* Bartholomew, Robert E.; Simon Wessely (2002). "Protean nature of mass sociogenic illness". The British Journal of Psychiatry 180 (4): 300–306. . . http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/180/4/300 Retrieved 2011-9-23. * Borkenau, Franz, 1981. End and Beginning, On the Generations of Cultures and the Origins of the West. (ed. and intro. by Richard Lowenthal). New York: Columbia University Press. * Bostock, William W., (2007)
Retrieved 2011-9-23 Collective Depression: Its Nature, Causation and Alleviation
In: Bernie Warren, Ed., Suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune: International perspectives on stress, laughter and depression. At the Interface (Volume 31). Rodolpi: Amsterdam, New York, pp. 1–12. {{ISBN, 978-90-420-2148-8 * Freud, Sigmund, (1955). Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Group Psychology and Other Works. In Standard Edition, XVIII (1920–1922). London: Hogarth. * Jung, Carl G., (1959). The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. (17 Volumes). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. * Le Bon, G., (1960). (First Published 1895). The Mind of the Crowd. New York: Viking. Depression (mood)